Green Tips
We recognize that not all offices are the same. Decide what level of practice your workplace falls into – just starting out, ready to take it to the next level, or already a green office looking to improve – and look to the suggestions below to increase your effectiveness.
Level 1 – Just starting out
- Participate in the recycling program at your building. Contact your Property Manager at 202.638.3000 for mixed paper or bottle & can recycling receptacles and a list of recyclable materials.
- Turn off lights when leaving an office, conference room or break room.
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- For the junk mail you receive, remember to toss it in the recycling bin instead of throwing it out with the garbage. You can even recycle plastic window envelopes.
- Keep your microwave clean and you’ll be able to maximize its energy. This means less electricity used, less money spent, and less time cooking.
- Report all leaky faucets and burned-out light bulbs to your building staff.
- Look for paper notes made of 100 percent recycled fiber and at least 30 percent postconsumer content.
- Turn off individually controlled air conditioning units when leaving a conference room.
- Change incandescent bulbs to fluorescent lighting, but only when they burn out.
- Consider making double-sided copies when possible.
- Use the power management mode on your computer and copy machine.
Level 2 – Ready for the next step
- Unplug a cell phone or laptop once its battery is fully charged.
- Consider three-way task lamps; they make it easier to keep lighting levels low when brighter light is not necessary.
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- Recycle your phone books. Better Yet: Call to stop phone book delivery and then use an online telephone directory instead. Telephone books make up almost 10 percent of waste at dump sites.
- Unplug your appliances, where possible, when you leave work.
- Visit the EPA’s ENERGY STAR website at www.energystar.gov for tips on purchasing ENERGY STAR-labeled office equipment.
- Turn off your power strips when they’re not in use.
- Try using binders and file folders made from recycled materials (like paper, boards, steel, postconsumer recycled fiber, and so on) and reuse them year after year.
- If you want to be sure the tap water in your office is clean, try installing a water filtration system instead of buying bottled water – you’ll save money over time and get better-tasting water…About 1.5 million tons of plastic are used in the bottling of 89 billion liters of drinking water every year.
- Buy rechargeable batteries, and you’ll save money over the long term. A single rechargeable battery can replace up to one thousand single-use alkaline batteries over its lifetime. Americans throw out approximately 179,000 tons of batteries per year.
- Keep a scrap paper collection for printing unimportant documents.
Level 3 – Already a green office, looking to improve
- Use refillable pens. Pen refills cost as little as $1 each, priced almost the same as disposable ones. Pens are often tossed into the garbage and not recycled or reused. Their components and packaging are made from nonrenewable resources and can contain environmentally damaging chemicals. Every year, Americans discard 1.6 billion pens.
- Consider reduced-wattage light fixtures or motion detector-controlled lighting in common areas such as corridors, conference rooms or copier areas.
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- Place signage in common areas encouraging employees to incorporate green habits into their work lifestyles. Recycling signage can be found here.
- Purchase biodegradable disposables for your break room. Better yet: use traditional plates, cups, and silverware and reuse them!
- Consider using green catering companies that utilize local and organic food and drink along with biodegradable disposables.
- Participate in an inkjet recycling program for used toner or printer cartridges. Recycling programs to benefit charity organizations can be found through websites such as www.recycleforcharity.org. Programs that provide direct rebates back to your organization can be found at websites such as www.empties4cash.com.
- Try printing online stamps instead of using a postage meter. You’ll save on equipment, maintenance, and money. Postage meters use more ink than printing stamps online – an additional $27 Million worth of ink for U.S. businesses per month. When ink dissolves from products at a landfill, it can release harmful chemicals into the ground.
- For windowed offices, try installing a daylighting sensor to increase energy efficiency. Using a ceiling-, wall-, or fixture-mounted sensor measures the amount of illumination at the task space, then signals a switch or dimming ballast to adjust the light output in order to maintain the desired level of illumination.
- Save time and money by teleconferencing. Avoid the average business trip by airplane and you’ll save enough energy to conduct seven thousand hours of videoconferences!
- Interested in LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Certification of your office space? Talk with your Property Manager for assistance – the Green Team is here to help! For more information about LEED Certification, visit www.usgbc.org.
Tips for Home
- Unplug your TV when it’s not in use. You’ll save money and energy. Between 10 and 15 percent of a TV’s energy is still used when it’s powered “off.” To make this easier, try connecting your TV to an outlet that is connected to a wall switch.
- Run full loads in your dishwasher to save energy, and, when possible, don’t pre-rinse your dishes before putting them in. Do both and you’ll save up to 20 gallons of water per dish load, or 7,300 gallons per year. That’s as much water as the average person drinks in a lifetime. (If you must hand wash your dishes, turn off the tap while you scrub.)
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- Use fewer paper napkins – everywhere. There’s no need to grab a huge stack of napkins from the concession stand when you know you’ll use only one or two. In the office, use recycled-material paper towels or kitchen towels if possible.
- If you must use dry cleaners, try to go less frequently. You will not only save on drive time and fuel, you’ll save plastic. Dry cleaners bunch items together into plastic garment bags, so the more items you bring at once, the better. Better Yet: Request no plastic garment bags, and return your paper hangers to the dry cleaners for recycling. You can also try eco-friendly dry cleaners.
- Buy your movie and event tickets online or via telephone and print them at home. You’ll save time and paper waste. Print-at-home tickets use plain copy paper, which is easier to make into recycled paper than the paperboard used for printed tickets.
- Seek out energy-efficient (front-loader) laundry machines. Your clothes will wash and dry faster!
- Recycle your cellular phone. Donate your phone to a charity or sell it to a third-party recycler. You can often take a tax deduction for the phone’s value or get hard money for it from a recycler.
- When replacing holiday lights, you can save significantly on electricity consumption and cost by choosing LED (light-emitting diode) types. Three one-hundred-light strands of LED bulbs running for five hours every day between Thanksgiving and New Year’s will use on average only 3 kilowatt-hours – an energy cost of around thirty cents. For the same time period, large incandescent bulbs will spin your meter at a rate of 472 kilowatt-hours and to the tune of nearly $60.
- Use public transportation regularly. For those who drive to work every day, try taking public transportation once per week, where available. For information about bus and rail availability in the D.C. Metropolitan area, visit www.wmata.com.
- Bike to work! The District of Columbia rolled out a program in 2008 called SmartBike DC, a self-service public bike rental program. For more information, please visit www.smartbikedc.com.
